Joe McHugh, the Minister for Education, announced this week that there will be a review of the decision to make history optional at Junior Certificate level, which came into effect in September. The decision has been widely criticised, including by Fianna Fáil leader Micheál Martin who addressed the subject at the West Cork History Festival in August, as reported here by the Irish Times.

Lar Joye, who spoke at both our 2017 and our 2018 Festivals, was previously at the National Museum and is now Dublin Port Heritage Director. The Port has released this fascinating film about the Dublin Dockyard Munitions Factory, particularly its female workforce. This is of course one of the most important themes of the last four years of commemorations, the hugely varied roles taken on by women in the conflict, both at home and on the fighting fronts.

We are very pleased that renowned West Cork artist Brian Lalor has allowed us to use his stunning etching ‘A Vision of Glendalough in the Thirteenth Century’ (etching, aquatint, rouletting, 41 x 78cm) as our Facebook header image. It is also reproduced below.

A happy reminder of the 2018 Festival are the animations created for us by the very talented Delia Johnson. She animated the logo on the home page of our website (see it here), & created the one below, inspired by Dr Connie Kelleher’s talk on the 1627 wreck of the Spanish treasure galleon Santa Ana Maria.

The next West Cork History Festival will take place from 8-11 August 2019. Please check back to this website and on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram for updates as we put together our 2019 programme. Look forward to seeing you then.

Ronan’s fantastic film, United Ireland: How Nationalists and Unionists Fought Together in Flanders, was made with Enda O’Dowd, and screened at the 2018 Festival. It has recently been shortlisted for the Imperial War Museum’s Short Film Festival. You can see the film here:

Professor Alvin Jackson giving our opening address, on Edward Carson and John Redmond; the latter died 100 years ago this yearLord Puttnam introducing Michael Attenborough who spoke about his father Richard’s film classic anti-war film about the First World War, Oh! What A Lovely War, followed by a specially edited screening of the film

Professor John Horne on ‘The War to End All Wars? International Perspectives 1918 – 1923’. He is accompanied by Simon Kingston, co-founder of the WCHF, and Gus, the Festival dog.

Micheál Martin introducing our Saturday afternoon session on the events of 1918, a pivotal year; with him is Professor Eunan O’Halpin of Trinity College, Dublin.

Dr Ida Milne, speaking on the 1918-19 influenza pandemic in Ireland

Professor Louise Ryan, University of Sheffield, on the Irish suffrage movement and the Irish Citizen Newspaper

Lunchtime at the Festival, with food provided by Carmel Somers and Chris Hedges and coffee by The Golden Bean. Also starring Gus the Festival dog again.

Professor Colum Hourihane on Gothic Art in Ireland

Dr Susan Flavin of Anglia Ruskin University speaking about consumption habits in 16th century IrelandOur Festival Concert with Patsy Puttnam (left) and Jessie Kennedy, performing songs inspired by the diaries of Lady Mary Carbery in the early 1900s

Niamh MacNally of the National Gallery of Ireland on artist Margaret Clarke, about whom she curated a very successful exhibition at the Gallery in 2017

Victoria Kingston, Festival co-founder, introduces Katie Childs, Head of Partnerships & Stakeholder Relations at Imperial War Museums. Katie spoke about the museum & the First World War centenary, particularly focusing on women’s role in the war.

Dr Andy Bielenberg of UCC who spoke on ‘Disappearances in Co Cork 1920-22 and the case of Mrs Lindsay’. Simon Kingston, Festival co-founder, is on the left.

Jeremy Irons, who closed our 2018 Festival with a reading of revolutionary era and First World War poetry

Jeremy Irons, actor and West Cork resident, will be our closing act at the 2018 Festival. Irons, who has taken on diverse roles in film and theatre over a 40-year career, will read a selection of poems written in response to the Great War and the Irish Revolution and will offer a brief reflection on each of them.

This will make a fitting close to a Festival which will reflect upon these events in the centenary of the war’s ending and the establishment of the First Dáil. Irons himself takes a keen interest in the history of West Cork and lives in nearby Kilcoe Castle which he has restored. He has been a champion and inspiration for the arts in the area for many years.

Commenting on his involvement in the Festival, he said, “I am a West Cork man and an Englishman, the events of the Great War and revolutionary period in Ireland matter to me. We are shaped by them, but we continue to struggle to understand them. The words of these poets, Irish and English, their fascination, fury, sorrow, and their confusion, are important. Their witness gives us a way to comprehend something of those times and the people who lived through them.”

2018 marks the centenary of the founding of the Royal Air Force and to reflect this aviation historian Guy Warner will speak on three First World War aviators with Cork connections, Mick Mannock, Robert Smith-Barry and John Carbery. The talk will take place on Sunday afternoon and tickets can be bought here

John Carbery grew up in Castle Freke, near Roscarbery, and his mother Lady Mary Carbery’s diaries have inspired the concert which Patsy Puttnam and Jessie Kennedy will give on Saturday evening. Find out more here

Agnes Clerke, born in Skibbereen, was an astronomer and science writer. She and her sister and brother were all home-educated and brilliant in their fields, Ellen and Aubrey in literature and law. In 1885, Agnes published her best-known work ‘A Popular History of Astronomy in the Nineteenth Century’.

Finola Finlay will speak about Clerke in a talk entitled ‘From Skibbereen to the Moon: Agnes Clerke and Nineteenth Century Astronomy.’

Margaret Clarke (nee Crilley) was a successful painter in her own right, but has often been over-shadowed by her husband Harry, Ireland’s best-known stained glass artist. After his early death, she managed his studio as well as bringing up their three children and continuing her career, mostly focusing on portraits. National Gallery of Ireland curator Niamh MacNally will speak about Clarke on whom she curated a very successful exhibition at the National Gallery in 2017.